BOAC London to Melbourne 1960
 

Hi folks, I'm trying to identify the actual plane my mother flew into Australia with and could use some helpful assistance.

The information I have is the following (may not be accurate)
- The plane had BOAC written on it.
- She boarded the flight in Athens on the 4th of July, 1960.
- Immigration records say she arrived in Melbourne on the 7th of July, 1960.
- There were many Austrians on board.
- The plane had propellors but she doesn't remember how many engines.
- The plane constantly broke down.
- The captain was English and would constantly come out of the cockpit to ease the stress passengers experienced during a "plummet".

After a lot of internet searching the best I can come up with is the aircraft could have been a Bristol Britannia - G-ANBG or G-ANBA perhaps. This particular aircraft model was not very reliable and had an engine icing fault requiring a regime of high/low flying.

If anyone has any further info of this particular flight that would be very much appreciated.

NB: I won't be in a position to reply to this thread for the next month or so but may be able to catch a quick glimpse of it.

Thank you, CT.

I had a quick look at the BOAC timetable of 24.4.1960 Airline Timetable Images - List of Complete Timetables
and see that most flights were done by Comet 4s. The Britannias only went as far as Teheran.
"- There were many Austrians on board." Do you mean Australians? Not too difficult to distinguish between them!

Check it out yourself. Also, it will be difficult to find the precise aircraft flown.

Laurence

I think NBG had been reregistered as PLL by then. Certainly it was some months later when I flew on it to Rome

And surely BOAC didn't fly Athens-Australia?

You're right. London-Athens-Sydney (not on to Melbourne) was a Qantas Comet. My eyes get crossed looking at the timetable with all the variable stops. But I can't figure out a flight that fits Athens-Melbourne. All I can offer further is that it is likely the aircraft had 4 engines! Oh, and there would have been multiple captains over that marathon trip.

Laurence

Your Mother was emigrating to Australia? The government ran charter flights bringing immigrants out to Australia from various countries (see next para). Various operators provided services. I'd suggest if your Mother was emigrating she came on a BOAC charter flight with a mix of Austrians and Greeks, since she boarded in Athens. Melbourne is said to be the seventh largest Greek city in the world.

Belgian migrants arrive by Qantas BRITANNIA aircraft - Sixteen Belgian families - comprising 43 adults and 50 children, arrived at Melbourne by a Chartered Qantas Brittania as assisted migrants from Brussels in February, 1962 - The flight was arranged by the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration and came to Australia via India, Singapore and Darwin (from an Australian Government archive)

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...27fcb59994.jpg

The aircraft above is obviously a Britannia, you can just see the "C" of BOAC below the No. 1 engine.

And Qantas didn't have Comets either !
They may have had what we now know as a code share with BOAC though-using either BOAC Comets or Qantas Constellations?

Halcyon Days: This service was with BOAC Comets but using Qantas code EM546.

Laurence

Qantas didn't run Comets. They used BOAC aircraft, as was done for a number of other "Empire" carriers, at a time when jets were few and far between. They didn't have Britannias either; the one above just has a Qantas sticker applied.

However, the OP says that the aircraft had propellers, and being an Athens to Melbourne emigrant charter I would presume it was a Britannia 100, which were starting to get bumped from main scheduled BOAC runs by the jets. The Qantas/BOAC pool was still dominant and they got the pick of government-paid charters.

I too wondered if Austrian was an error for Australian, but equally can imagine an emigrant charter for a London-based aircraft filling up half in Vienna and the other half in Athens before heading onward. Incidentally, the engine intake icing issue principally afflicted the prototypes, and was pretty much dealt with when they finally entered service, which had been significantly delayed as a result. Shortage of spares downroute for the otherwise unknown Proteus engine was a much more likely issue.

If anyone has full sets of Propliner magazine, as a number of us here do (mine are too far back in the attic) there was detailed coverage of BOAC Britannia operations, including specific mentions of some notable charters they performed. That might be the best bet.

Wow, thank you all very much for your responses (and apologies for my delayed acknowledgment as I had no internet access until now).

I doubt it was a DH Comet as she recalls the engines being radials with propellers (and always breaking down). The plane had arrived in Athens with Germanic speaking people en-route of which my mother recalls being either Austrian or Dutch. It could have been a charter, the plane was mostly full of young single women and there were a small number of families with children onboard - all heading to Australia. Apparently the plane stopped at Darwin then flew direct to Melbourne.

Thank you, CT.

Sounds like a good description of one of these:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...b2730ef3da.jpg

Though, given that it was 1960, more likely one of these:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...e59955798d.jpg

Thanks for the images David,

I showed here both photos and she just can't remember what the plane looked like from the outside, however she did favour the Britannia. She remembers the plane departed Athens in the afternoon which matches a BOAC departure in the timetable (page 20) posted previously, in which case it could have been the Super Connie, however there is every chance it could also have been a charter or BOAC could have changed the scheduled plane to be the Britannia. She also recalls the plane had square windows and there were about 80 people on board so we know it was one of these two aircraft.

Thank you, CT.

did the BOAC dc'7s ever go eastwards to the Empire?

sounds like a Britannia leased to QF...

Could well be. Albeit we've been told that its "radial engines" kept breaking down. Not to mention the "square windows".

ah!
what about a QF connie?

Just came across this gem in my research, it may be of use to others (in fact many books on that website look interesting)

The Migrant Caper

Although it's mainly focussed on the 1947-49 period there is a footnote for 1950-60 of which they cite Britannia charters were mainly used for the immigration runs to Australia. However, according to the article, even clapped out DC4s were being used from Yugoslavia/Hungary/Czechoslovakia to Australia.

To the uninitiated the Britannia would look as though it had radial engines.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...abc79a907c.jpg

Douglas DC-4s had round windows. But Canadair's pressurised version with Merlins, the C-4 Argonaut, had square ones.

It was easy to be fooled in in thinking some DC-4 had square windows. Quite a few small (and shadier) operators painted squares around the round windows of their DC-4 in an effort to deceive people into thinking it was a DC-6. They were pretty artistic efforts. The black rubber deicer boots on the wings and empennage of the DC-4 were of course a dead giveaway as the DC-6 had heated leading edges of dural.
By the way, "square" windows were not square. They had generous radius's in their corners eliminating the stress riser of a sharp "square" corner.

As an aside, must admit I missed your earlier reference to "RRAF". Yes, I remember seeing the odd C4 at New Sarum in the early 1960s, And once flew from JNB to SAY in an EAAC Argonaut.

No. The DC7C acquisition was the cause of much airline-government-media acrimony, only finally justified by the US dollar earning advantage to a UK airline of having competitive aircraft with the US operators by the mid-1950s, where BOAC were still stuck with first-generation L-749 Connies and spacious but lumbering and unrelable Stratocruisers, both of which sometimes required two fuel stops between London and New York, which the DC7C could do nonstop. The DC7Cs were only deployed on US routes, and those routes to Bermuda/ Caribbean which routed through New York, and which mainly carried Americans.

BOAC's fleet had been in a considerable mess in the earlier 1950s, with most of their types (Argonaut honourably excepted) giving serious problems, then within a few years 1957-60 a whole lot of replacement types finally came into service together, giving further difficulties. The DC7C, the Comet 4, the Britannia 100, Britannia 300 and the substantial initial 707-420 fleets all arrived in quantity pretty much together.

gruntie, you might note the OP said,Memory is a terrible thing, and may or may not be accurate. I recall being at a reunion and saying to a fellow course mate "Remember when we...". He later produced documentary evidence that my memory was complete bollox, yet I would have sworn on the proverbial stack of bibles as to the veracity of the story. About the only way to answer the OP would be to access the movements at Essendon airport on the day.

My money is on the Britannia, as throughout the Britannia's lifespan, the engine icing condition remained a "continual potential hazard" that flight crews ultimately learned to manage with a "high-lo" flight regime that minimized the danger.

DC-5 also had round wondows, see pichttps://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...0aa1775b18.jpg

Is that possible? do movement records go back as far as 1960? How does one query them?
I have a tentative arrival date of 7/7/1960 from the national archives (https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/) with a record that states "travelled per MIQAN flight" whatever that means. Unfortunately there is a lot of unprocessed information by the NAA and online information is scant.

Also, don't take the "square" windows thing too seriously as she was more interested in the people she was travelling with rather than the plane itself.

Just a guess MIgrantQANtas flight

CC

Funny how these things pan out. Recently I discovered my mothers arrival card in the Australian digital archives which says she arrived in Melbourne (Essendon Airport) on the 7th July, 1960 in an aircraft registered as G-ANBH which is a Bristol Britannia.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....09e0bd43db.jpg

Again, thanks to all who provided advice.

Cheers.

G-ANBH old chap - fab photo

[QUOTE......... lumbering and unrelable Stratocruisers[/QUOTE],

Do you mind ! extract from my logbook ..... 22nd January 1959, Boeing 377 G-ANTY "Coriolanus" Barcelona - Accra .... engine failure 4 hours South of Barcelona, diverted to Tripoli. 25th January, 1959 .... Tripoli - Accra.

Providing that there was enough engine oil available, I recall one of he DC-7C Flt. Engineers telling me that the DC-7C range was limited by the oil consumption, not the fuel load available.

I believe Britannia 102 G-ANBG was charted to fly the English Football team somewhere, and they figured that NBG was not a suitable acronym, and it was re-registered as a result ?

I'm pretty sure that the Brit. 102;s flew regular services to Oz, something like a 28 day trip for the crews, slipping at all the various stops en-route, and when the Boeing 707 was introduced BOAC started "posting" crews to Oz for 3 months, to fly part way back to London and make the London based crew pattern shorter. Good Old Days.

ExSp33db1rd,

Why are you new here? I've been wondering where you have been - hope all is OK.